Close Call

This was a very real fortune cookie:

“You are one in a million.”

Yes, that’s what it said, right on time for the end of our date. No, I should be more specific: Right on time for the end of a relationship. She had something that she wanted to say, and she said it between forkfuls of Pad Thai and the shared white pot of very strong green tea. I hadn’t wanted to pour it out after she said it was over. It tasted right without anything to sweeten it. No bitterness there...

Fork… She said something about them and Asian restaurants. She said that if they (they) wanted to open restaurants here, they should use what the rest of us use; not a pair of wooden or plastic sticks that you really felt odd using no matter how well you served and ate whatever it was that they really put on your table. I did not try to point out to her that not all countries out there used chopsticks, but she always had to be right. It was always her against whatever facts are thrown in her direction. At least she enjoyed everything else on the table, including the fortune cookies.

People always wonder how we met, and I do have a story that many of my friends and family never understood.

Speed date!

Yes, we met at a speed date. I was onto my fourth one, clearly wasting my time trying to impress women outside of my class and taste in every possible way. My real temptation was to leave after the huge space of time left after I mentioned my comic book collection. There really was no gap there that would have allowed me to escape. Maybe it would have been easier if no one had sat with me and I could finish my Mountain Dew in peace.

No, no, no…

Now, let’s see if I can make this very brief and clear: she met me and decided that I would be next on her list. She had already taken on most of the people our speed group – not much to say about them – and then she got me. Later, I was warned about what to expect with her – high-maintenance and a broken heart – but I could not resist. From the moment she sat down, I did not have a chance. There is a certain curve to the body, a certain movement of the hips, and a certain shine to the eyes that some women just have. That was all it took (maybe she should have had this cookie).

We were together for a long time. I think that this might have been a record for me. Most of the girls in our group were ones that really did not interest me that much, but I was friends with enough of them to feel comfortable around women (something my mother noted when she did not complain about my being single). But we were together for longer than anyone else I could mention here.

Did I see the signs? Why is that always a question in these types of moments? Is any man really an expert on reading such things? We dated, we talked, and we had something that I thought was real. And then…

Thing have to end when they end. It was not pleasant when I stared into my cup and heard her say that it was over. I could have just stood up, made a scene, and left the place without paying, but even as I thought about all of that I could not do it. We simply sat there. She kept complaining about the staff and I wondered if we should order another pot of tea – I suddenly wanted oolong or lapsang souchong – but neither one of us was listening anymore.

I still wonder why we had those fortune cookies on the table. They did not usually serve them until after you had the bill and were searching for your money. I had my wallet in my suit jacket and could stare at them as they lay on a flat white plate on the black lacquered table.

Maybe that was why I opened mine first. She had her Pad Thai and I had the tea pot and I just wanted to see if there was some sort of cosmic joke inside of that dull biscuit. She was still going on about the chopstick vs. fork controversy she created, but I was holding onto the thin strip of paper with the red lettering and numbers (good to have a plan for the lottery).

I still have it. It’s in my wallet. The promise I’ve just made to myself is that one day I would write about this and not let her just bounce around in my memory. There is something about time and patience that is very true. It was clearly written for me, not her (never saw what was inside her fortune; still bothers me not to know).

And I don’t know why I am thinking of this now. Maybe after three months, we should have talked about it: no sex. Not even on the third date (is that the rule?). I think that’s what did it. Were we both so nervous that we could not find a way to approach that? I wasn’t. Not one bit. From what I heard about her, it wasn’t much of a problem for her, either. So why didn’t it click? Ah, well, too late for that now, anyway. Maybe people should get that out of the way after the first date and not play games. It could help out with a lot of nonsense.

This bathroom window is very convenient. I hope they don’t give her a rough time when they find out I’m gone. She has her own money (that much I know). Maybe she will have some fun with this story later. It is the least I can do without bothering to explain myself. It is really the start of something new.

And it is a beautiful night.

There was a lot of truth in that fortune; something for the both of us.